My Story and My advice for Job hunting

Hope this helps.

My name is David. I am from Scotland. 20 years young and moved to sweden in 2010 january.

In Scotland I worked in the finance sector, everyday i see the people writing the same things i did and thought. "Why cant a find a job" . The fact is and I promise you this, Without a high class degree in somthing and a good knowlege of swedish its very hard. Very unlucky. First of all in sweden, If your from Africa or the middle east, there is programmes to help you to find a job, the most popular of which is nystartjobb, Swedish government pays 64,71% of your pay for 5 years.Also swedish people who are unemployed have a similar programme but it pays 74% i think. We, the english speakers here by choice, GET NOTHING. Punkt slut. I explored every avenue i could. My advice is look at manpower, Studentconsulting ( You dont need to be a student ) Ranstad.se, adecco. For terminal jobs.

When i moved here i worked clearing the snow for a month, then i was jobless, then 2 months later i got a cleaner job, shit pay and i did that for 6 months, everyone of those days in the 6 months. I was Dying for a better job. It took me 5 months to realise i was doing it all wrong. I put my cv and called manpower etc EVERYTIME a job came up in the terminal sector. I then got myself a FOLKLIFT card or TRUCKCARD i svenska. There is sooooooooooo much need for truck drivers, sweden has a massive exportation. ( GET ON OF THEM! 2000KR, or arbertsförmedlign MIGHT help pay it or some). After that i got a job straight away working with truck. min pay after tax 15 000kr. Now one month later from that date i have been made arbertschef of my terminal for day shift. I get a cool 25 000 after tax a month.

I did it all wrong from the start, if you dont speak swedish. get a truckcard and your CV on adecco, manpower and studentcounsulting, there is so many jobs there at the moment, mainly in stockholm and gothernberg. Good luck to you all and if you have any questions you can message me, i honestly know the swedish system backwards and forwards after 10 months of constent job search.

Aye great advice there Had the same troubles as you being british also, if you choose to move here instead of choosing to travel through 6 different safe countries to get here, you get nowt diddy squat, and unfortunately i hadn't been working within the EU the previous year so couldn't transfer any jobseeking benefits here. I myself just got a terminalarbete job at a warehouse (not with truckkort though) via StudentConsulting, and my swedish is nowhere near great. Spent 4months hunting diligently via AMS whimpering that noone would employ me due to my swedish or just too much supply and not enough demand for the "non skilled" type jobs (you even seem to need several years experience to dish wash these days)

The day after I applied to a job via SC i got an interview, and within a week I was employed ! It's a part time job on the side of SFI (so yes studying swedish can count on the "you must study or have another "huvudsaklig sysselsättning" (not even sure how to translate that) that many SC jobs require (though ofcourse the fulltime ones never have such a study requirement) I may get up at stupid o'clock and travel for 3hours a day, but it's a damn good start and i'm just glad not to have to be doing praktik work in order to get experience in swedish worklife and have a swedish reference

But getting a licence is very expensive and time consuming, for those massive SCANIA and MAN type of trucks I mean. What happens is that someone who is willing to become a truck driver usually finds someone willing to employ them who then pays for that driving course.

Another problem is that you need to speak Swedish pretty well. I wanted to become that logistics person who sits in the office and calls drivers and tells them where to go where to load etc etc I could have the job tomorrow,from a family friend, if only I spoke Swedish. There are some international firms that cover the whole of Europe, basd in Sweden, but obviously these jobs are hard to get.

I suggest you get a cleaning job. Private houses for example. Thats what I think Ill be doing. Will fit well with my SFI, I got my PN on Friday and going to sign up tomorrow.

But getting a licence is very expensive and time consuming, for those massive SCANIA and MAN type of trucks I mean. What happens is that someone who is willing to become a tru
... (show full quote)

But getting a licence is very expensive and time consuming, for those massive SCANIA and MAN type of trucks I mean. What happens is that someone who is willing to become a truck driver usually finds someone willing to employ them who then pays for that driving course.

Another problem is that you need to speak Swedish pretty well. I wanted to become that logistics person who sits in the office and calls drivers and tells them where to go where to load etc etc I could have the job tomorrow,from a family friend, if only I spoke Swedish. There are some international firms that cover the whole of Europe, basd in Sweden, but obviously these jobs are hard to get.

I suggest you get a cleaning job. Private houses for example. Thats what I think Ill be doing. Will fit well with my SFI, I got my PN on Friday and going to sign up tomorrow.
... (hide full quote)